Is Crypto Currency the new Blood Diamond? #BLOODCOIN

What is Blood Diamond?

As per wikipedia, “Blood diamonds (also called conflict diamonds, war diamonds, hot diamonds, or red diamonds) is a term used for a diamond mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, an invading army’s war efforts, or a warlord’s activity. The term is used to highlight the negative consequences of the diamond trade in certain areas, or to label an individual diamond as having come from such an area.” In Summary, Blood Diamond leads to increase in crime or war.

What is Crypto Currency?

As per dummies, “Cryptocurrencies, sometimes called virtual currencies, digital money/cash, or tokens, are not really like U.S. dollars or British pounds. They live online and are not backed by a government. They’re backed by their respective networks. Technically speaking, cryptocurrencies are restricted entries in a database.”

How is Crypto Currency created?

Crypto currency is created by a process called mining. For more information, see the process of mining at investopedia

Is Crypto Currency the new Blood Diamond?

It is now quite common for criminals to illegally mine Crypto Currencies using the resources of other users/companies. Also, these criminals have regularly robbed the Crypto Currencies from other genuine owners. For some of the well documented cases, check out the attacks in 2018

It is very clear that the Crypto Currencies are funding lot of scamsters, cheats and cyber attacks in the internet world. It is time that proper regulation is in place to make sure that the Crypto Currency mined or owned is NOT a BLOOD COIN #BLOODCOIN i.e not the result of any illegal activity.

How do you protect yourself from such Cyber Attacks by miners of Crypto Currencies?

Like any other cyber security activity, what works today may not work tomorrow. You need to keep an active watch on your infrastructure and respond in case of any abnormal usage. Many of the attacks on the major cloud providers are probably known to the IAAS vendors, but most of these vendors do not provide advisory to the customers. Probably it is in the interest of these infrastructure vendors that customers end up using more resources.

Fortunately, the Crypto Currency bubble seems to have burst and the incentives for Cyber Criminals to hijack the resources for mining will reduce.